


Scent Memory

by hobbitdragon



Series: Witcher Fics [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (implied in the past), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Beginning of Witcher 1, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Triss is not at Kaer Morhen when Geralt arrives, implied nonmonogamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24093574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: Geralt remembered nothing of Kaer Morhen or the three men inside it. But one of them smelled safe.
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Series: Witcher Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731811
Comments: 41
Kudos: 227





	Scent Memory

**Author's Note:**

> The first sections of this fic were a little difficult to write because Geralt doesn't remember his own name, much less anyone else's. I tried to make it as clear as I could which sentence refers to whom, but doing that without any names was awkward.

He was so cold that he’d stopped feeling it. Frost rimed everything and crunched underfoot as he stumbled onwards. His vision slid and tilted. The pale clouds of his breath misting around his face provided only the briefest illusion of warmth. He wanted to stop, he needed to stop, but he _couldn’t_ stop, they were chasing him, they’d let him go with only the parting shot to his side and if they caught him again they’d--

The blood seeping out of the wound made his fingers slide over his pebbled gooseflesh. He could not stop. He was running from someone. Who was he running from?

Voices from upwind and some ways away filtered through the trees. 

“Geralt,” called a voice through the woods. Close, so close, too close. “Geralt please!”

“It’s not him,” someone else said. “It can’t be him, you know it can’t, people saw him die.”

“Well I saw him myself half an hour ago,” the first voice responded. “Just for a moment, but there was white hair. And come on--smell that? I _know_ that smell. I know it better than anything. And you know it too.”

“You’re deluding yourself. It's been how many years since he came to Kaer Morhen? He came _every_ year to see us and he hasn't come. Ugh, for once, I’m gonna hate saying I told you so.”

He was running from someone bad. He ran on. 

He knew he needed to keep his footsteps quiet but he was so tired. His legs no longer had the energy to be soft and springy and silent. Twigs snapped under him and the scent of his blood and body would betray him no matter how hard he tried to stay downwind and they would find him, they would catch him, and this time, this time they would--

He didn’t know what. Something awful. Something he couldn’t bear. 

He had to keep going. He _would_ keep going. He would--

He collapsed. The moonlight dimmed still further. He closed his eyes just for a moment, just for the briefest moment before he got up again. There was a noise from nearby, like an indrawn breath, but that had probably just been him. 

Something touched him and he jolted, striking out. A strong hand caught his wrist. 

“Whoa hey hey! Easy, Wolf, easy, it’s just me, it’s just me,” a deep voice crooned at him. He tried to fight but he didn’t have the strength. All he managed was a convulsive twitch. A hand stroked the hair out of his face. “It’s just me, it’s just me,” the voice repeated.

He couldn’t see. He didn’t know who this was. But--but they smelled familiar. 

_Safe,_ a voice in the back of his mind told him. _That smell means safety._

He relaxed, slipping into unconsciousness. 

**

A jolt of pain woke him. He blinked, wincing at the light. Something cast a shadow over his eyes and he relaxed. 

When he blinked again he saw there was a hand held up over his face to shade him. He followed the arm to its source and saw a face covered in brutal scars.

Something told him he was in no danger now. When he glanced down, he found he was wrapped in a warm but scratchy wool cloak that smelled familiar. The surface under his head was soft--the figure’s thigh, he realized--but below that was a wood cart that bumped and jostled. Its movement was what had woken him.

“Where am I?” he asked. 

“Again! Why _that_ question? Why not ‘who are you’?” someone snapped from above and behind him. “Think he’ll remember us this time?”

The scarred person ignored the other speaker. “Everything’s all right,” the scarred person told him, revealing a deep, husky voice. “The important thing is you’re alive and among friends.”

“Though he looks like he just left his grave,” the other voice added. “Least my medallion isn’t twitching. Means he _probably_ didn’t.”

He craned up to try to see the second speaker but doing so sent shocks of pain through his side. A shaky little groan escaped him and he and subsided. He took deep breaths through his nose to ease the ache. As he did so, each breath carried new information to him. 

Damp wool from the cloak. Sharp herbs from the hand shading his eyes and also wafting up from inside the cloak--had they put something on his wound? Some sort of grease on the leather armor the scarred person wore. Familiar body smell, the musk of two days since last washing. Fresh rainfall. Horse.

Among friends, the person had said. Didn’t that mean that the face should be familiar? The _scent_ was, but not the face. Shouldn’t he remember scars like those?

“I remember nothing,” he admitted, closing his eyes in shame. 

“We’ll speak soon enough,” the scarred person told him. “We’re nearing Kaer Morhen.”

He didn’t know what that was, but the voice and smell together soothed him. He relaxed into the warmth of the wool cloak. He’d just close his eyes for a moment.

**

They gave him a potion that tasted horrendous and felt even worse in his gut, but it closed up the wound in his side within hours. 

They told him his name was Geralt, though the one who'd sat with him in the cart called him ‘Wolf’ instead and Geralt didn’t know why. Because this group of people smelled familiar and he had no other options, he believed them. His name was Geralt. These were his friends. 

The one with the dramatic facial scarring told Geralt his name was Eskel. The sarcastic one, who seemed to be angry at Geralt for no reason Geralt could discern, was apparently Lambert. An older man with a mustache was Vesemir. Something about his scent kept Geralt watchful and wary with him. And there was a younger man named Leo. 

Vesemir gave Geralt a sword and put him in the training yard with Leo.

“Let’s see how much muscle memory is left, if anything,” Vesemir said, calm as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall of the keep. “You remember how to talk, so there’s probably something of this, too.”

Leo smiled at Geralt and came at him. Geralt side-stepped easily, moving around Leo. The fight that followed after was effortless--the movement of Geralt's shoulders, feet, hands and hips--all of it flowing naturally through him. Just like speech, as Vesemir had said. 

Leo was good, but neither as fast nor as skilled as Geralt apparently was. Geralt disarmed him in a sharp surge, Leo’s sword flying across the practice yard. 

Leo shook his head. He wore a forlorn expression as he trotted to pick up his weapon. 

“I was kinda looking forward to winning for once,” he sighed, examining the blade for damage. 

Geralt stood, wondering if he should apologize, blood surging through him as he shifted from foot to foot. He didn’t want to stop. He’d only just started to get into it. 

With a crooked smile, Eskel stepped into the ring. 

“That was too easy for you, Wolf,” he purred. “Let’s see if you remember your signs, and can go up against a _full_ Witcher.”

Eskel gestured with his left hand and something golden flickered over his skin. His smile looked vicious with the scar pulling his lip up into a snarl. It should have been frightening, yet all Geralt felt was eager. His heart thumped under his breastbone and he adjusted his clothes to lie more comfortably. A twirl of his sword came naturally and looked neat.

Geralt wasn’t quite sure what a Witcher was. Something they both were, perhaps? But he knew that he fell into a fighting stance without question, grasping his sword with both hands as he waited to see what Eskel would do. 

“Go easy on him,” Vesemir chided, and Geralt wasn’t sure which of them Vesemir meant. 

Eskel was still grinning as he made the first swing. 

The force of his blows shook Geralt’s sword differently than Leo’s had. Leo was no weakling, but he had nothing on Eskel, whose big body moved the sword with crushing force. One hit would take any of Geralt’s limbs clean off, even the legs. 

But still Geralt did not feel afraid. They moved around each other, dancing on their toes as they tried to better one another. Once, Geralt’s attention slipped and he would have given Eskel a very bad cut--but instead sparks flew from where the tip of his sword had grazed Eskel’s shoulder. That must have been the golden shimmer from before--some kind of magical shield. 

“First touch to Geralt,” Vesemir said calmly. “Eskel, watch your backswing, you’re getting sloppy just because it’s him.”

Eskel gave this no acknowledgement, instead letting loose a stunning barrage of blows. Geralt tried to block a few and then realized that if he continued he’d just tire himself so he rolled and ducked instead. When he rose to his feet, he tried to stab forward to Eskel’s side, only to be blown backwards into a stagger by a sudden shock of force. He stumbled, caught himself by instinct, and rolled again just as Eskel’s sword swung down at him. 

“Seems like cheating if Geralt doesn’t remember how to do it back,” Leo murmured, but Lambert only snorted. 

“Bastard deserves it for all the times he’s beaten all of us with just swords,” he sneered.

Geralt caught Eskel again with the tip of his sword, which would have left a deep cut across his thigh this time. But again the sparks went up and Eskel skipped away. 

The fight went on, and on, till finally Eskel knocked Geralt over with another blast from whatever magic he had, and before Geralt even knew what was happening, Eskel’s sword was at Geralt’s throat. 

“You win,” Geralt acknowledged, feeling only a little disappointed by the loss. “Now teach me how to do that.”

The show seemingly over, Lambert pulled Leo into a practice fight of their own. Eskel smiled again, sheathing his sword and gesturing Geralt aside. He moved in close to Geralt, catching his left hand. A thrill ran through Geralt. 

As Eskel showed Geralt the hand gestures and mental visualization for what he called ‘signs,’ he stood close. The warm smell of Eskel’s sweating body wafted up to Geralt through Eskel’s clothes, tantalizing Geralt’s nose with its familiar comfort. He knew nothing about Eskel, could not have guessed his favorite food or preferred sleeping position, but Geralt’s body seemed to know something his mind did not. He wondered what Eskel’s mouth would taste like. He resolved to find out later. 

It only took being shown each sign once for Geralt to remember how to make them himself. The gesture, the calling of the power from within himself, the opening of the way through him. 

He wondered if his memories might return the same way, someday. The right gesture, the right application of willpower, and the opening of himself to them. 

Try as he might, Geralt couldn’t bring up a single memory of this man, but Geralt _could_ set the yard on fire and then quench the flames with a gout of wind. 

They sparred together for most of the afternoon, and then Vesemir sent them out to hunt. While they were walking together, Eskel showed him various usable herbs, then loaned him a crossbow to see if he remembered how to use that, too. Given that Geralt nailed a hare at thirty paces, it seemed he did. 

By the time they returned with six hares and a pheasant, all Geralt could think about was Eskel. He kept catching the man looking at him, gaze lingering, and then snapping his eyes away every time Geralt caught him doing it. His face never changed when this happened, and he didn’t acknowledge it. But it kept happening. And when he spoke, he stared right into Geralt’s eyes. Twice, Geralt caught him breathing in Geralt’s smell just as deeply as Geralt was doing with his. 

Geralt cornered him after dinner. He thought it was pretty clear what they’d been to each other, even if Eskel was too conscientious to say. So Geralt followed Eskel to his sleeping quarters, which Eskel did not seem to mind him doing, and then pressed close and sealed their mouths together. 

A shocked little noise escaped Eskel. For a moment Geralt thought he must have gotten something wrong, and he withdrew a finger’s breadth to ask about it, but then Eskel grabbed him, pulling him close and kissing back. 

Right, then. So Geralt had just caught him off-guard. 

Only a few minutes passed until they were both hard, rocking against each other as they leaned on the wall, and then Eskel did actually pull away with a sharp smack to Geralt’s backside. Though it stung, Geralt found he didn’t mind. 

“Come on, get your kit off, I don’t want to have to do laundry,” Eskel said. “Knowing you, you’ll pretend that’s the one skill you don’t remember.”

Geralt couldn’t help smiling at this. Eskel seemed to catch it himself, returning the smile with a look of surprise. 

The keep was cold, though, so they only unlaced and pushed down their breeches. Eskel shoved him down on the bed and had Geralt in his mouth before Geralt could even think to ask what they were going to do together. 

From there it quickly became obvious that Geralt had been right and they’d done this before, often. He didn’t need to offer any direction at all, just laid back as Eskel worked him over. By the time Geralt came, he was hungry to return the favor. 

Eskel’s scent was stronger between his thighs. It wasn’t exactly a sweet smell, but something in Geralt calmed the longer he breathed it--and it only took him a few minutes to remember how to open his throat for this. 

When Eskel had come too, Geralt was hard again, but he no longer felt rushed. As far as he knew they had nothing to do with the rest of their evening, so he just lay and looked at Eskel. 

“Sorry,” Eskel sighed when he realized what Geralt was doing, eyes darting to Geralt’s face and then away just as fast. 

Geralt’s brow wrinkled. “For what?”

Eskel gestured at his face. “I know it’s not pretty. Must be bad seeing it for the first time all over again.”

At this Geralt’s brow wrinkled. He’d noticed the scars, of course--they were a very notable feature--but he hadn’t thought of them as anything beyond a simple fact of Eskel’s face. Lambert had facial scars too, as did Leo, and as did Geralt himself, if what he could feel on his cheek and forehead was a scar. 

“I don’t care about that,” Geralt offered, feeling confused. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask about the injury--and what if he’d been rude about the scars in the past? He didn’t want to know if that had been the case. So Geralt changed the subject. 

“How long were we together?” he asked.

Eskel snorted at this. “Your mother abandoned you first. You were here from infancy. Mine hung onto me till I was about five. Wonder sometimes what made her decide to do it then.”

Geralt wasn’t sure what to say to this, and it didn’t answer his question. But it did give him important information--apparently they had both been raised here together from childhood. 

“So we’ve known each other a long time. But how long have we been in love?”

The pupils on Eskel’s eyes dilated, widening so that they almost eclipsed the yellow. Slowly he turned his stare on Geralt. 

The silence stretched and stretched between them. Geralt wondered if he’d hurt Eskel’s feelings by acknowledging the fact that he had forgotten their entire romance. He looked away, feeling awkward and self-conscious. But surely it wasn’t his fault he didn’t remember? 

“What?” Eskel said at last. There was just the slightest tremor in his voice. 

Geralt felt even worse. “I can’t explain it, but I feel a bond when we speak. Or touch, or even fight. I know you were important,” he mumbled, wishing he hadn’t said anything. “And it’s obvious we know how to please each other. I’m sorry I've lost the memories.”

His erection wilted. After another moment of silence, he rolled away, tucking himself back into his smallclothes before pulling the laces tight on his breeches. As he rose to leave--he’d ask Vesemir where he ought to sleep, since it was clear he wouldn’t be welcome here--Eskel caught his arm, pulling him back down to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“Shit,” Eskel swore. “You just--you caught me off guard. You...you really don’t remember anything, do you? Just muscle memory.”

“You already knew that,” Geralt answered, now sweating under his clothes. The terror he’d been staving off all day swelled into the space left behind by his contentment. He remembered _nothing_ \--he felt safe with Eskel, but the others...the others he just had to take at their word that they meant him no harm. That the food was safe, this place was safe. He had been running from...something. What had he been running from? What if he’d led it here? What if it was _already_ here and he just didn’t remember who or what it was?

Why did he know how to fight so well?

“It’s...I’m not...” Eskel started to say. Finally he too did up his clothing and then slid forward to sit by Geralt’s side. 

“There’s someone else,” Eskel admitted at last, and Geralt closed his eyes. His chest ached. He hadn’t realized how comforting the idea of Eskel had been until it was snatched away. Geralt knew nothing, but it had felt good to think there was someone who loved him. 

Of course Eskel had someone else. Of course.

“I don’t know where she is,” Eskel went on. “But if you’re alive, maybe she could be too. Maybe she’s even looking for you right now. She never cared before if you and I messed around, though, so I thought it’d be fine.”

Geralt’s mind struggled with these sentences. “Wait,” he said carefully. _“I_ had someone else, you mean? I was in love with someone in addition to you?” 

“You weren’t--” Eskel started to say, and then went silent. He fiddled with a hangnail on his thumb, pulling at it. A small droplet of blood welled up and Eskel stuck it in his mouth. A moment later he pulled it out and stared at it, now damp. “Yes. You had--or maybe still have--someone you were in love with. Not me.”

At this, Geralt’s eyes narrowed. “Hold on, are you telling me that we’ve known each other since we were children, and we’ve been fucking for--how long?” Geralt prompted. 

Eskel paused, looking away. “Er...more than seventy years. Might actually be eighty years now. Started when we were fifteen.”

Geralt boggled at him. That...was a staggering amount of time. 

“And were we friends before, uh, whatever happened to me that I don’t remember?” Geralt asked, now even more mystified by the fact that Eskel seemed to be telling him they _hadn’t_ been in love. “Did we get along? Were we close?”

“Well--yes, I always thought so. It always seemed like that.”

“So we’ve known each other from childhood, we started fucking a long time ago, the sex is good, we’re friends, we get along--and yet you think I wasn’t in love with you? Or--” and a horrible thought occurred to Geralt then. He slumped. “Oh, you’re not in love with me. Oh.”

“No, I’m--” Eskel reached out with one hand as if to grab words from the air between them. “I’m...fuck, Geralt. Don’t make me do this.”

Geralt sighed around the aching in his chest. It was so sharp, _so_ painful that it made him surer than ever that he’d been in love with Eskel. 

“It’s okay,” Geralt tried to reassure him, feeling as though he might vomit. “You don’t have to spare my feelings. I’ll cope if you don’t feel the same.”

He wasn’t all that sure he would. He knew nothing and no one. He had nothing but the ability to fight and a sense that while these people smelled familiar, only one of them actually felt _safe,_ and that one person was sitting right here beside him. 

“No, that’s not it!” Eskel barked, the words harsh and a little too loud. 

Geralt subsided into silence. He took a deep breath, exploring the extent of the pain radiating up through his sternum and out his collarbones. The wound in his side was all but gone, so he couldn’t even blame that for the hurting. 

“We’re Witchers,” Eskel said at last, as though this explained everything when to Geralt it explained nothing. “Witchers _don’t_ \--they don’t fall in love with each other. We’re not supposed to. We can fuck, sure, but that’s all.” His intonation was hard to read. Was he furious? Resigned?

“But...” Geralt protested. “But I feel...”

“What can you _possibly_ feel for me?” Eskel demanded, the words slow and cold. “As far as you know right now, you’ve known me all of a day! Two days, if you count the time you were unconscious.”

“I know that my body responds to yours,” Geralt answered at once. When he said it, Eskel’s hands curled up tight between his thighs. “In so many ways. I know how to spar with you. I know how to relax at your side and trust in my safety. Your scent is familiar even if your face is not. I know how to kiss and touch you. I know that it hurts me here--” he tapped his chest, “--to think that you don’t love me back.”

Eskel stared at Geralt’s chest where he’d indicated. 

“I tested you with silver,” Eskel said finally, and Geralt stared at him in complete bafflement. “Some creatures can imitate the appearance of humans. But silver burns them. You didn’t react to silver when I pressed it to your skin while you were unconscious. And my medallion--Witcher medallions detect magic and tremble--my medallion has no reaction to you. So you’re not enchanted as far as I can tell.”

Geralt’s eyes narrowed. “Why is it so strange that I would be in love with you?”

Eskel let out a deep sigh. “Because I’ve been in love with you for a long, long time, and you never showed the least sign that you felt the same. Till now.”

In surprise Geralt blinked at him. "What?"

Eskel swallowed, the muscles around his eyes tight. “You were _dead,_ Geralt. People saw you die. They said that Ciri--your daughter, who has teleportation magic--did...something. But she never came back to tell us you were all right, so we thought...maybe she died too. Maybe you and Yennefer and Ciri had all died together.”

A _daughter,_ Geralt thought, simultaneously horrified and excited. A daughter he could neither remember nor see. A daughter _and_ a lover who might be dead, and a man beside him right now who was convinced that Geralt would never love him back. What kind of man had Geralt been? He hadn’t thought to worry about it till now. 

“Well I want to find out what we could be,” Geralt said with simple certainty. That much he knew. “Will you do that with me?”

The anxious glance Eskel gave him at this spoke volumes of the long, lonely years he must have spent in doubt. 

“Guess the damage is already done anyway,” Eskel said at last. “I’ve said it out loud now. Can’t take it back.” He shifted, rolling his shoulders. “Nothing to do but wait and see if you hate me for that later.”

This time Geralt reached out, wrapping his arm around Eskel’s waist and leaning around until he could press their lips together again. 

“I love you,” he murmured against Eskel’s scarred mouth. "I'm certain of it."

For a second they just breathed together, close but with their lips barely touching. When Eskel made no move to bridge the distance again, Geralt did it for him.

Geralt would see to it that Eskel didn’t regret this.

**Author's Note:**

> In the game, Geralt uses the “I can’t explain it, but I feel a bond when we speak" line on Triss within the first day he's recovered enough to walk around, and is sleeping with her for the first time shortly after. Using that characterization, it's pretty clear that Geralt is responding to some felt sense inside himself to guide who he trusts and commits to. So if you remove both Triss taking horrendous advantage of Geralt's amnesia to put herself in Yen's place, as well as the heterosexism of the game devs, you get this.
> 
> Comment if you enjoyed!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Scent Memory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292382) by [Chantress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/pseuds/Chantress)




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